Mary Nicola Moreno
by ABleedingPen
Summary: An Imogen Moreno story.
1. Prologue

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah- Yes. I'm ready."

His cold, sweaty hand covered hers. And with just the perfect amount of force, he lead her into another world. One built of ivy tangling in iron gates. And apple trees. And some kind of flowers she'd never seen before.

It smelled like happiness but the blue-grey sky over head, the color making the apples burn more passionately, made this place feel like one where all of this beauty came away to hide from treachery. It was an illusion of safety.

"Eli, it's perfect."

She seemed to distract him from thoughts that were, honestly, too big for a teenage boy.

"No,it's not." His eyes focused intently on the bridge of her nose. She stepped into him. He didn't step back, there would be no retreating. She tilted her head and closed her eyes as she stepped in again for a kiss. He was absolutely right, this place wasn't perfect, he was. "You're perfect," he managed to whisper into her lips before a kiss.

And they kissed again. And again and nothing hurt quite as much as the breath between each embrace.

She felt a tug in the back of her mind, one that whispered that she was being stupid. Kissing Eli in a place where she felt good things came to die.

"I love you." He said it. Eli finaly said it, and it was with all the heat, and goodness, and darkness and desire she'd always imagined. And as if it were for the first time, she said it too. But this time it was real, right to his face. And he seemed proud of it, the anger and hurt that typically lurked right at the back of his eyes was gone.

"So, you like it?"

"Like what?"

"Our new hideaway."

"Oh," she took another look round. "How could I not? It's perfection."

He took of his jacket and the light danced off of his brass buttons, he was the perfect foil to this scene. The emo boy taking an afternoon picnic in the Garden of Eden. If it weren't for his eyeliner, for his black fingernails, for the way his dark hair invited you to stare into his eyes, this place would fool her. She would believe it was perfect. But, there was Eli, everything that was right with the dark.

He layed in the grass and stared as far as the world would allow him into infinity. "Lie with me?" he teased her seductively. And so she did and let her head fall on his chest and let her mind play with the questions she wouldn't have been brave enough to ask herself if Eli wasn't there.

Like, "Why am I here? Why am I living? What's the point of me or any other waste-of-space human being?" And "How do I or how does anyone else know what love is like if it cannot be expressed in words?" She searched the sky for answers. Unfortunately, the sun has a way of blinding us.

Her eyes drooped shut as she felt the warmth of his perfectly subtle biceps wrapping around her and the steady rise and fall of his chest lulled her to sleep.


	2. Chapter 1

"Mary Nicola Moreno!" rang up the stairs, sound bounced off of the family portraits depicting every year from 1991. Off of the picture window overlooking the concrete driveway, the white picket fence, the sprinkler all-but-drowning the plush, green lawn. Off of the double-archway that lead into the upstairs loft and office that share a balcony onto the hardwood Moreno foyer. The sound bounced all the way to her room.

"Coming, Papa!" She ran through the office, through the loft, down the stairs, her white sundress flailing behind her. She skipped into the kitchen and there was the family: Abuela, Joseph, Mama, Papa.

"Mary Nicola, I know we've talked about this history grade before." Her father was waving about a yellow sheet of card paper and scanning over a piece of paper with the Degrassi letterhead on the top and Simpson's signature undoubtedly near the bottom. Report cards have arrived. "A 'C,' mija? A 'C?'"

"Well, it's a 'C+,' actually."

"So, then, you've been keeping up with this? And you didn't think to talk to us about it."

"I did, remember? I told you about how Mr. Perino was favoring the boys in the class and grading all of us girls, ridiculously."

"You know, Juan. I do think I remember hearing you say something like that," her grandmother says agreeingly.

"I'm sure Mary is going to pull her grades up this semester with that new teacher. Mr. Del Rosi, you like him, don't you, sweetie?" her mom says while she sits on a stool in front of the kitchen island.

"Yeah, definitely. See, Papa, everything's going to be just fine in history."

Her father just groans and turns to her little brother. "And where's your report card, sir?"

"Oh, we haven't gotten ours yet. But, I promise, it's 'C' free."

"It better be." She's on the receiving end of one of her father's disappointed glances.

"Well, I'm starved. Pancake house?" her mother propositions the bunch of them.

"Sounds delicious."

"Wait, Mary. Why are you still in your dress? We came home so you could change, remember?"

"Oh, right, Abuela. I-uh... I..."

"Are you about to lie to us, Little Moreno?" asks her father, warningly.

"Well," she begins, "I was about to change when Eli called."

"Eli?"

"Her boyfriend, Juan."

"You mean to tell me that our daughter is dating and you didn't tell me about it."

"Of course I've told you about it."

"No you did not," she takes on her father's full confrontation, "And was it so urgent you beckon to this Eli's call that you kept your family waiting."

She wanted deeply to say yes.

"Were you discussing today's service? Does he go to our church?"

She wanted deeply to say that he's an atheist.

"And why haven't we met this boy? Unless your mother has and she just didn't think it important enough to tell me."

She wanted deeply to tell them that it was because he belonged to Imogen Moreno, and at the moment, she was just Mary Moreno.

"Because, it's just not that serious, Papa. Eli's really, hardly a boyfriend. More like a friend who's a boy."

"Good. You're too young to date."

"She's 17, Juan," her grandmothr rhetorted.

"And, I'm pretty sure you let Juan date when he was just 13," her mother said, referring to her older brother.

"Well, then, welcome to the double standard." They all laughed. Even she did and walked to her father's side, where his arm wrapped around her.

"So, the pancake house, then?" her father looked down at her lovingly. Deciding that, for all the reprimandment, she'd earned the right to choose.

"I just want waffles."

"Well, waffles you shall have."

She stood on her tip-toes to kiss her father on the cheek. "Can I ride with Abuela today?"

"If she doesn't mind?"

"No, of course I don't?"

"Abuela," she turned her attention from the world zooming past her window to the grey-haired speed demon controlling the vehicle. The sun has a way of making us all a bit more brave. "Were you in love with grandfather?"

Her grandmother cracked a knowing smile. "I thought it wasn't serious?"

"I figured you wouldn't fall for that."

"Ah, see. You're too smart for a 'C+' in history."

She smiled and soaked in some more sun light through the window.

"No, I wasn't. But, I sure thought I was. He was everything everyone had told me that I wanted."

Her grandmother had evaluated that the stop sign ahead really only meant 'Yield.'

"Are you in love with Eli?"

"...I don't know."

"Wrong answer."

"What do you mean?" She watched the reflection of Mary Nicola. Whenever she was alone with her abuela, Mary and Imogen looked so much alike.

"I mean that you're too young to be in love, Mary. I promise you, you are."

She crosses her legs and picks at the innocent, lacy hem of her dress.

"We're here," her grandmother announces.

"You realize that Papa won't show up for like 5-10 minutes, right, Abuela?"

"'Ey, that doesn't mean we can't run up a bill while we wait, does it?" Her grandmother grins down at her with perfectly open, brown eyes. Like the bark of one of the apple trees in her Garden of Eden.

"No, Abuela. No it does not." She links her arm with her grandmother and they dance into the restaurant while her mind races with thoughts of Eli.


End file.
